Friday, December 7, 2018

For those of you that are not yet following our other social media sites, our remote sensing team includes nationally-recognized expertise beyond our Mobile LiDAR services. Our UAS experts recently collaborated with Intel Corporation and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to use drone technology to help inspect and analyze the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge. Click on the below image to watch the video.

Friday, November 9, 2018

On behalf of the men and women of Michael Baker International's Mobile LiDAR Team I would like to
recognize and thank our veterans (and their families) who unselfishly serve this great country. We are humbled by their sacrifice and thankful for the freedoms they protect.

Friday, October 12, 2018

An often overlooked component to the success of Mobile LiDAR is actually one of the most recognizable elements - and seemingly far too obvious because it's built right into the name - "Mobile". Without a vehicle (car, truck, SUV, UTV, Boat, push-cart, etc.), Mobile LiDAR systems are giant, expensive paperweights.

Regular vehicle maintenance is critical, but even then, mechanical failures happen. An unfortunate (and costly) byproduct of continuously operating 4 Mobile LiDAR systems and criss-crossing the nation to capture tens-of-thousands of Mobile LiDAR data each year is the wear and tear on vehicle drive-trains. And to be more specific...TRANSMISSIONS!

Nothing brings a successful deployment to a screeching halt (literally sometimes), like a failing transmission. Unfortunately, we've had 2 of our systems experience transmission failures over the past 2 months. We take pride in developing/implementing SOPs for virtually every aspect of our collection operation, but it's a bitter pill to swallow when you realize that you readily know the procedure for emergency drive-train repairs.

Friday, October 5, 2018

Sorry, there's no Ziggy Stardust here. Just a training session focused on good old fashioned terrestrial ground control. We figured there's no better way to reinforce our commitment to quality than to celebrate our 9th anniversary of Mobile LiDAR ownership with a series of training sessions to teach/reinforce proper techniques for LiDAR processing and introduce new methodologies and software applications to enhance efficiency.

Key members of our LiDAR Processing Team commandeered the board room from our former headquarters in Moon Township, PA to kick off a series of training sessions to share techniques and best practices.

PS - my apologies for the "Space Oddity" earworm. It's been rattling around my brain since I starting thinking about this post.

Friday, September 28, 2018

As you read in our previous post Ellicott City Flood Modeling, we deployed one of our Mobile LiDAR teams to Ellicott City, MD to capture post-event as-built conditions. In addition to providing the County as well as State of Maryland agencies with the high-resolution LiDAR point cloud and spherical imagery, we took the opportunity to create a visualization of the observed 2016 flood levels overlain on a current 1:1 scale model of Ellicott City. The resulting video (see below) was developed to aid residents as well as County and State Officials in their comprehension of observed water depths and inundation.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Following the significant reconstruction efforts in Ellicott City, MD resulting from the catastrophic flooding event that occurred on July 30, 2016 we saw the perfect opportunity to put our company tagline into action and Make a Difference.

Localized and micro-flood modeling analyses are perfectly-suited to capitalize on the high-accuracy terrestrial LiDAR and spherical imagery generated by our Mobile LiDAR systems, so with the assistance of our local Baltimore office we deployed a Mobile LiDAR team to capture the post-event as-built conditions and generate high-resolution data that could be used by County, State and Federal agencies.

Unfortunately, on May 27th, 2018 the unthinkable happened again just 22 short months after the previous flood, so we immediately jumped into action and provided County and State of Maryland agencies the collected data to aid planning and mitigation efforts to prevent future devastating flooding events. LiDAR and spherical imagery was made available through our innovative web-viewing environment (LiDARData.net), which builds upon Orbit GT’s Publisher framework to create an interactive environment where stakeholders can navigate Old Ellicott City through spherical imagery, generate measurements from the LiDAR data, and interrogate 3D geospatial vector data in a seamless environment to base decisions and recommendations on a 1:1 scale model of the real world.

Stay tuned for our next post, where we’ll share an animated flythrough of the LiDAR data along Main Street with a simulation of the 2016 flooding.

Sample spherical imagery captured along Main St and used as the foundation for the web-viewer

Mobile LiDAR point cloud data overlain the spherical Imagery. The blue-to-red color ramp is used to help users distinguish near-field objects from those at greater distance.

Flooding simulation based upon observed high water from the 2016 flood.

Friday, September 14, 2018

Like the majority of the country, Hurricane Florence has our full attention. Devastating winds, torrential rain and elevated storm surge create a dangerous trifecta for our coastal (and inland) communities. We're closely monitoring the effects of this storm on multiple fronts.

First and foremost is for the safety of our staff, clients, and residents of the Carolinas. Secondarily (and it's a distant second), we're watching the South Carolina coastline for lessened effects of beach erosion following the State's efforts to mitigate storm impact.

We are proud to have taken part in those initial efforts by deploying our LiDAR survey services in support of the cause. Throughout the project Michael Baker's Mobile LiDAR team traversed over 250 miles of the South Carolina coastline to survey 300+ revetments and revetted seawalls using a mixture of Mobile LiDAR (riding on a modified UTV) and Static LiDAR for supplemental surveys.

LiDAR (both Mobile and Static) Survey of 300+ revetments and seawalls along the South Carolina coast.

Friday, August 31, 2018

Labor Day isn’t the unofficial end of summer, it’s a time celebrate the contributions of the American Worker that have underwritten our country’s success.

All of our U.S. offices are closed this Labor Day in honor of those that have played a pivotal role in building our nation’s infrastructure.

Our company’s innovative work spans nearly 80 years and proudly supports the communities in which we live and work. While celebrating our past achievements, we’re laser focused on serving our communities and clients as we Make a Difference.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

A big CONGRATULATIONS to Michael Baker's own Bob Hanson (SVP and Chief Scientist),
for receiving the MAPPS Presidential Award for Outstanding Service.

Bob was the visionary, catalyst, and leader that launched Michael Baker's Mobile LiDAR services 9 years ago. He has been a regular guest speaker at MAPPS events over the years and served on the association’s Board of Directors for the past six years. He also has served as the past-treasurer and recently helped facilitate the association’s strategic shift, which resulted in increased revenues and membership.

Formed in 1982, MAPPS is a national association exclusively comprised of private firms in the remote sensing, spatial data and geographic information systems field in the U.S. The MAPPS membership spans the entire spectrum of the geospatial community, including member firms engaged in satellite and airborne remote sensing, surveying, photogrammetry, aerial photography, LiDAR, hydrography, bathymetry, charting, aerial and satellite image processing, GPS, and GIS data collection and conversion services. MAPPS also includes associate member firms, which are companies that provide hardware, software, products and services to the geospatial profession in the U.S. and other firms from around the world.

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

In case you missed our Project of the Year announcement, or the feature-length article in Heights 2018 magazine covering our project work at DFWIA, check out the latest edition of POB Magazine for a recap of the 2017 MAPPS Excellence Awards category winners and Project of the Year.

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

As we celebrate our nation’s independence this Fourth of July, we encourage you
to reflect on how fortunate we are to live in a place with an amazing diversity of peoples, cultures, traditions, beliefs, and
histories that have come together to make this great country.

Enjoy your time with friends and family and have a safe and responsible 4th!

Friday, May 25, 2018

On behalf of Michael Baker International, the Mobile LiDAR Team would like to take the opportunity this Memorial Day to recognize and remember our country’s military members who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the very freedoms we enjoy today. As you spend this weekend with loved ones, please think about those who fought and gave their lives to secure the liberties that allow us to live, work and make a difference.

As a firm that employs veterans from many countries and delivers mission-critical services in support of our country’s military across the globe, we’d like our active duty, reserve, guard and contractor friends and family to know they are in our thoughts during their extended deployments and separation from friends and families.

If you are able and so inclined, please consider making a contribution to organizations that support the surviving spouses and children of our fallen heroes. Such organizations include (but not limited to):

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Michael Baker was honored at the annual MAPPS Geospatial Excellence Awards for our work in Pavement Data Collection and Asset Inventory at the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW). MAPPS presented Michael Baker with the category award for Surveying/Field Data Collection, then recognized the innovative project with the Grand Award for Project of the Year!

Big win for our Mobile LiDAR/Pavement Team!

Stay tuned for an upcoming article about the project in the Heights 2018 special edition of XYHT magazine.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a video
worth? Regardless of word count, this video (flown by Jack King and
compiled by yours truly), certainly creates a powerful statement about the
capabilities of our national Pavement Team.

Special thanks to the outstanding professionals of the NCAT facility at Auburn University for granting access to perform the first UAS flights over the Test Track that made this video possible.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Fresh off the test track in Opelika, AL, we’re proud to announce our team cruised (pun intended) through the certification process. Special recognition goes out to Ken Contrisciane, Vahid Ganji, Clark Jackson, and Jack King for passing the written and driving exams, and configuring our Inertial Profiler to pass with flying colors!

Stay tuned for upcoming videos from the certification process and the first-ever UAS footage captured over the NCAT test track.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Our
fleet of 4 Mobile LiDAR systems are nearly always on the move, and can be
anywhere in the United States or internationally on any given day. With daily fleet
activities averaging over 300 miles per day nationwide, resulting in nearly
7,000 miles of collections in the past 4 months, efficient productivity
tracking and reporting is easier said than done.

Capitalizing on the previously
un-tapped wealth of data produced by our field operations, our fleet logistics/tracking
team developed a real-time solution to harness data from the on-board Positioning
Orientation System (POS) to create a Real-Time Vehicle Trajectory (RTVT) solution.
The single file summarizes each vehicle’s collections and correlates the
systems’ position, GPS solution, attitude (pitch, roll, heading), and velocity at
1 second intervals for each sensor and camera initialization. Designed for
transportability, an RTVT can be transmitted to our tracking team within
seconds after collection, and enable near-real-time loading to interactive
project maps and daily status reports.

The
design of the RTVT not only supports our real-time production tracking needs, but
also the needs of our daily mission planning operations as well. To effectively
leverage the power of the individual RTVT files, the tracking team customized
existing navigation software to thematically display RTVT’s that render
user-friendly visual-cues that have ultimately increased daily
production while decreasing costly “go-backs” and recollections.

Thursday, February 15, 2018

Throwback to the December 1957 edition of Photogrammetric Engineering Journal. Although we’ve grown out of our original digs in Rochester, PA and Jackson, MS, these offices live on with our Mobile LiDAR team in neighboring Moon Township, PA and Ridgeland, MS respectively.

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Lately we’ve been considering our Mobile LiDAR Data
activities under a different light so to speak. In a word, LiDAR. We get to see
our world quite differently through the vast amounts of LiDAR and

imagery we
collect performing very large urban projects. I was recently at the DistribuTECH
2018 conference to better understand how utilities with electric and/or
broadband services are considering and reacting to technological, economic and
societal implications of a Smart City.

Development of a Smart City affects nearly all systems
comprising a City’s infrastructure. An electric grid’s smart meter system and
grid improvements are fully functional with 5G capabilities. Fiber and wireless
networks are implemented to carry present and future data from many
connected-systems. Smart technology enables real-time diagnostics and management
of: utilities; aviation, automotive, commuter rail and other vessels or vehicles
comprising intelligent transportation systems; and government facilities and
services, health services and activities, and first responder functions. Entertainment
and recreation services, domicile and commercial facilities, and
consumer-driven information demands are all connected. Web-browsing, texts, voice, machine data, automatous
things, and pictures or video are transmitted at speeds of 1Gbps to 10Gbps or
more with 5G.

Many Smart City displays were at DistribuTECH 2018. The
photo of an AT&T kiosk shows a 3D city-street model with conceptual graphic
trajectories of many smart devices communicating wirelessly to their antennas.
This sort of 3D analysis is necessary for wireless propagation modeling for placing
microcell and small antennas. Mobile LiDAR is a perfect solution for data
needed in 3D modeling and analysis, and for preparation of design, construction
and permitting data.

Michael Baker extracts many forms of utility and roadway network
details from our LiDAR point clouds and exports data directly into utility pole
analysis, as well as various CAD, GIS and Asset Management applications. We
also collect and model aerial electrical distribution and meter services. We measure
anything attached to the pole or visible on the ground like road and sidewalk
conditions, curbs and gutters, signage or pavement markings, or other visible
utilities in the right-of-way. This data is used in planning and designing the many
networks to serve a community.

Stopping to overlook our Bay Area collection.

Michael Baker’s Mobile LiDAR vehicles have recently
collected over 7,000 miles of roadway corridor covering nearly 3.5 Million
metropolitan residents in the largest cities across the United States. Terrestrial-mobile
LiDAR and spherical imagery is used to update maps, GIS data and 3D models to
understand a city’s in situ conditions to support design and construction
permitting. However, the same data can be used for a multitude of other
societal purposes such as the implementation of complete streets, local transit
planning, ADA compliance or similar programs.

Ultimately the collected LiDAR data helps serve a community with
improved utility networks and other infrastructure. By using LiDAR, cities are
creating better, safer, healthier communities in which to live and work. Better
planning, design and construction is a great outcome. It’s smart, too.